Georges Brassens often wondered:
"When I will be a hundred years old, will the world still exist?"
Four decades after his departure, the planet is doing more or less well, but his songs remain more than ever present in the memory of the old ones, but also in the hearts of the new generations.
They are taught at school, sometimes in colleges and high schools that bear his name.
Biographies, essays and shows celebrate these days the centenary of his birth, on October 22, 1921, in Sète.
Read alsoGeorges Brassens, a centenary and a timeless work
Madelen, the INA platform, is not left out by offering a tribute in the form of an anthology of documentaries, reports and interviews.
In front of the cameras of “Cinq Colonnes à la une”, in 1962 and 1966, and at the microphone of “Radioscopie” by Jacques Chancel, in whom he has absolute confidence, the troubadour delivers himself with a discretion and a modesty which are also his brand.
Read alsoDiscover here “Five columns in the spotlight” dedicated to Georges Brassens
He thus does not derive any glory from verses and choruses, the creation of which sometimes took him weeks, even months of work, while respecting an organization as regulated as his music paper. Every morning, at 5 a.m. sharp, his first gesture when reaching his office at Impasse Florimont (Paris 14th arrondissement), then rue Santos-Dumont - from 1967, is to lock his phone in a cupboard and place cotton on the ringer. There is no question of being disturbed, even distracted, when he is copying for the tenth time a quatrain in which he has changed a sentence, or even a word, discovered at the bottom of an old dictionary. His library is overflowing with books to which he has a love that he shares with his friends. When a novel or an essay pleases him, he has it bought in ten or even twenty copies whichhe offers to his loved ones.
The birth of a melody is not easy either.
His creation on the piano rather than on the guitar, is the result of long trial and error on the keyboard.
To his ears, it should be in perfect harmony with the text, and easy to remember.
This simplicity is only an appearance.
Those who have included one or more of them in their repertoire are unanimous in saluting the millimeter precision of the notes and arrangements.
“You imagine me with a cocked hat!
And then, I hate all the uniforms except that of the postman ”
Georges Brassens on the French Academy
Brassens, too, has a hard time interpreting them in front of the public, but for other reasons. He never really enjoyed this exercise. Originally, his only ambition was to become a songwriter in the service of what he considered to be true performers. On the evening of his first audition, March 6, 1952, Patachou convinced him, not without difficulty, that he had to go on stage. If performing in front of crowded and enthusiastic venues sometimes drew a smile from him, his greatest satisfaction undoubtedly remains that day in June 1967 - the 8th, to be exact, when the French Academy awarded him a Grand Prix for Poetry. In the process, some assured that he would present himself to join the Immortals under the Dome. He quickly denied this rumor:
“You imagine me with a cocked hat!
Besides, I hate all the uniforms except the postman's. ”
No doubt because the latter is also a man of letters.
